GERMINAL
of his sanctuary, in that unknown distance where poor wretches fed him with their flesh without ever having seen him.
But Étienne, leaving the Vandame road, now came on to the paved street. On the right he saw Montsou, which was lost in the valley. Opposite were the ruins of the Voreux, the accursed hole where three pumps worked unceasingly. Then there were the other pits at the horizon, the Victoire, Saint-Thomas, Feutry-Cantel; while, towards the north, the tall chimneys of the blast furnaces, and the batteries of coke ovens, were smoking in the transparent morning air. If he was not to lose the eight o'clock train he must hasten, for he had still six kilomètres before him.
And beneath his feet, the deep blows, those obstinate blows of the pick, continued. The mates were all there; he heard them following him at every stride. Was not that Maheude beneath the beetroots, with bent back and hoarse respiration accompanying the rumble of the ventilator? To left, to right, farther on, he seemed to recognise others beneath the wheatfields, the hedges, the young trees. Now the April sun, in the open sky was shining in his glory, and warming the pregnant earth. From its fertile flanks life was leaping out, buds were bursting into green leaves, and the fields were quivering with the growth of the grass. On every side seeds were swelling, stretching out, cracking the plain filled by the need of heat and light. An overflow of sap was mixed with wispering voices, the sound of the germs expanding in a great kiss. Again and again, more and more distinctly, as though they were approaching the soil, the mates were hammering. In the heated rays of the sun on this youthful morning the country seemed full of that sound. Men were springing forth, a black avenging arm, germinating slowly in the furrows, growing towards the harvests of the next century, and this germination would soon overturn the earth.
the end
[472]
